


The Unsaid "Goodbyes" and 'I Love You's"

by dderidex



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Death, Chief is alone, Implied/Referenced Suicide, More ships to be added, Multi, Screams into the void about platonic Kara and Lee, also Apollo and Starbuck are like... 90 percent platonic, raptor bros! raptor bros! raptor! bros!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-03-11 09:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13521864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dderidex/pseuds/dderidex
Summary: Instead of the first words your soulmate ever says to you on your wrist, it's the last. As if Battlestar Galactica needed more angst.A collection of ficlets, both platonic and romantic, about various ships.





	1. Felix and Dee

**Author's Note:**

> Besides polyamorous people, most people are born with only one tattoo. You may have two, in which case you have both a platonic and a romantic soulmate, but this is not as common. You don't know which is which, and even if you just have one, you don't know if it is platonic or romantic. Everyone's is on their left wrist, even if you have two.

“Hey, Dad? I was thinking about my soulmate.” A seven-year old Dee peeked out from behind the doorway. She was nervous, but she needed her dad to tell her it would be okay.

“Yes, sweetie, what is it?”

“My mark says ‘Yeah, none of us do.’ What if I’m the one to die first, and I’m talking about going to the afterlife with the Gods, and he says that nobody goes to the afterlife? What if my soulmate doesn’t believe in the Gods?” She started talking faster and faster. “Why would he say that as I’m dying? What if– “

“Shh, it’s okay. Your soulmate would never say such a mean thing to you. That’s why they’re you’re soulmate.” Dee’s father looked right at her and said, “Okay?” Dee’s eyes went wide and she nodded gravely. “Good,” her father said. “And it might not even be about the afterlife at all. It could be about something completely different. It’s not good to speculate, else you’ll end up like this.” Dee nodded again, although it didn’t completely stop her from speculating.

What if he _was_ agnostic?

***** 

When Felix’s mother held him for the first time, she laughed a big, hearty laugh. “Well, honey, I guess we can cuss around him as much as we frakking want!”

“What, why?”

“Here, look at his mark.”

His mom took Felix from his mother and looked at his wrist. She smiled. “Well, it’s not like we weren’t going to do that anyways.”

Her wife laughed and said, “Well, at least his other soulmate is more well-mannered. We’ll probably like the first one better, though!”

***** 

“Look at that, little Ana’s got her smile back.” Dee smiled.

“Sometimes I don’t even remember that’s me! It’s so long ago…she has no frakking idea what’s ahead of her.”

“Yeah, none of us do.” Gaeta stopped, thinking he had heard someone say that phrase before, but his mind was burdened by the tragedy of Earth. He shook off the feeling and trudged towards the doorway.

Dee hummed a nothing tune as she opened her family locket for the last time. She would soon see them again. Only a matter of seconds, at this point. She watched Felix close the hatch and looked down at her wrist. The quote mirrored exactly what he just said. Official confirmation that they were soulmates added to her joy and she gave a pleased smile as she took off her wedding ring. She only hoped that he would know.

She looked back up at the picture of her, probably when she was around seven years old. She had been so worried that her soulmate was agnostic, which, of course, he was, but his quote wasn’t referring to the lack of an afterlife. It was referring to something much worse.

Her fingers trailed down her tags and fell to her side. Dee took a deep breath and seized her gun from her locker.

***** 

Gaeta whipped his head around as he heard the shot from inside the quarters. There was a sinking feeling in his gut but maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t Dee. But it was. He knew it was, he didn’t even have to look at his wrist to know. The words, her words, were engraved into his skin. He knew them by heart. How could he not have frakking realized?

He hobbled his way over to Dee as fast as he could, but it was not enough. It was over. _Frak._

“MEDIC!”

***** 

When Felix arrived at the morgue, Lee was already inside. He let Lee have his peace; he thought it best if they both grieved alone. He planned to stand vigil anyways, whether it be in or out of the room.

About five minutes later, Admiral Adama trudged past. “Sir, I–” Gaeta started. He was fine waiting for Lee, but he didn’t want to let _everyone_ go see his soulmate before him.

“Not now, Gaeta,” the admiral growled, and walked into the morgue.

Felix crumpled. All he wanted was to see her, one last time. Her words ran through his head. _She has no frakking idea what’s ahead of her._ He pulled down his sleeve and ran his thumb across the words.

Then came the memories. The two of them laughing in the racks, the hand signals and codes they used to communicate in the CIC, the time they got smashed and got matching tattoos. He barely even noticed Lee brush past him a minute later.

He was right in his guess that Lee wanted to be alone. But the admiral snubbed both of them, and they would have to come back at another time. Except Gaeta wasn’t coming back. He was going to wait here, stand vigil, for as long as he could.

Felix began to sing. The song was old, but it was about Dee. It was about a girl in a man’s world, a girl with a string of bad relationships and a cloud of depression. It was about a girl who would never wake up. He barely even knew what he was singing, only that it represented Dee, but those who walked past only recognized it as the song he sung when he was in the infirmary.

When Adama finally left, he glared at Gaeta and muttered under his breath, “If you weren’t so annoying with your frakking singing, I could have stayed in there longer.” But Gaeta was already pushing open the doors to the morgue.

He didn’t think he could look at her face, so he just held her hand. “Dee…Dee,” he cried, “you were my best friend. I can’t…How…I love you…” He looked down at her wrist to see his past words echoing back to him. He only hoped she knew.


	2. Kara and Lee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know people might get upset at this but I actually see Kara and Lee as platonic soulmates! Their romantic relationship was beautiful and tragic but would never _quite_ work out imo.

As soon as Lee was old enough to figure it out, he knew. He knew exactly what was going to happen with his soulmate. She would be dying first, unfortunately, but he would be right there, at her bedside. He would probably be protesting against her, and she would say exactly what was on his wrist. _It’s okay, just let me go…they’re waiting for me_. As soon as he figured it out, he didn’t give it another thought, except for maybe wondering how pretty she would be, and how many kids they would have, and…well, maybe he did think about it a bunch, but it was more fantasizing about his future wife than worrying about how she was going to die. He already knew.

*****

Kara hated her soulmark with a burning passion. All the time, her mother would bring it up without reason. “See, Kara,” she would say, “you won’t ever make anyone happy. Not even your soulmate. You can’t even please a single godsdamn person in the whole twelve colonies! You’ll leave your soulmate and you’ll have to come running back to me.” Kara knew that whatever happened between her and her soulmate, she would never come back to her mother. But she still didn’t like the implications of her mark.

When she joined the military, the first thing she did was take the offered wrist-cover. She had bought one once when she was fifteen, all bright and colorful with yellow and orange lightning bolts over a dark blue sky, but her mother had burned it in front of her that night. Something about accepting her horrible personality or whatnot. She wasn’t listening. (She _was_ listening, however. She told herself she never listened when her mother talked about her soulmark, but she did. The words rang in her head over and over until they cemented a place in her brain right next to where she memorized the ones on her wrist. One didn’t come without the other.)

The wrist-cover the military gave her was grey like her tanks, but it didn’t matter. As soon as she put it on, the hateful words her mother spewed were finally silenced. She had a cover now, and she’d never have to think about her mark again until she left her soulmate. And then she’d be free.

*****

“Godsdammit, Kara! You come back!” In her cockpit, Kara smiled a sad smile, because she knew that those words were reflected on her wrist, and that this was it. She barely even heard Lee yell the final part. “ _Come back!_ ”

“It’s okay, just let me go…” Lee’s eyes widened in understanding and in desperation. He knew those words, he had read them over and over, knowing that his soulmate would die peacefully in front of him. _Thinking_ that his soulmate would die in front of him. “They’re waiting for me.” She wasn’t. She was going to die in that viper, away from him, and nothing he could do could stop her.

Kara smiled and closed her eyes, the dark of the storm becoming bright as she–

“ _No! NO!_ ” Lee saw the viper explode in front of his eyes. She was gone. After everything they had been through, countless missions, both before and after the Cylons attacked, New Caprica, their respective marriages, their relationship in its entirety. Now he finds out they were soulmates. Only now. Why did it have to be this way?

His father asked if she was still okay. Did he not just hear him scream over the comms? No, she wasn’t okay. She was gone. No search-and-rescue team could bring her back from that explosion. He pulled up, away from where she once was, blinking back the tears. He couldn’t cry now. He had to make it back home safe.

***** 

They were soulmates, and she was gone. No peaceful goodbye, crying at her bedside. Just a crazy, beautiful pilot gone how a pilot should go, down with her ship in a blaze of glory. He vaguely wondered if he would forget her within a week, just like the rest of them. But they were soulmates, and he didn’t think he could ever forget someone like Starbuck.

He saw her in front of him, like a mirage, bursting with laughter. She was sitting at a table in the pilot’s rec room, about to beat everyone in a game of Triad. Again. She placed her cards on the table with a flourish and Lee felt an intense rush of emotions that could only be summed up with _she’s the one_. Despite everything, Lee smiled. To be sure, he was also crying, but he was still happy. The image of Kara looked right at him and gave her cocky, dazzling smile, then disappeared. Lee was once again left alone with his thoughts.

They were soulmates. The thought wouldn’t leave his head. How did they end up so frakked up? There was an instant connection, to be sure, but they never knew where to go – they just kept hurtling forward without a destination. But it didn’t matter now, because what they had, whatever it was, was the relationship of a lifetime.

***** 

And then she came back.


	3. Racetrack and Skulls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself I was going to spread out the romantic and platonic ships yet here we are

About a week after Hamish joined the Academy, he realized what the words on his wrist meant. He or his soulmate were going to die on a mission. But this was what he wanted; this was the life he chose. The next morning, he walked down to the clinic and took one of the standard issue mark covers. He was not going to let those words interfere with his dream of becoming a pilot, even if he had memorized them as a young child. Although the cover was mostly symbolic, it did allow him not to think about his fate, and it also kept other people from prying and realizing the same thing.

Once Hamish decided on becoming a Raptor ECO (he never got a feel for flying and failed the test), that ‘or’ changed to an ‘and/or’. Having both you and your soulmate die at the same time was a lot easier to deal with than just one of you, so he liked to imagine that he flew alongside his soulmate. Not that he thought about things like that too often. If you go into a mission thinking you aren’t going to make it, it’s a lot more likely you aren’t going to make it. So he didn’t think about it. At least that’s what he told himself before each flight.

After the Academy, he was put right on the Galactica, where he earned the nickname Skulls after reminding the pilots one to many times not to forget their helmets. Most people liked their current ECO, so he bounced around from pilot to pilot for a time. Eventually, he landed with Crius, and the two got along fairly well. Better than that, even. It took a bit of warming up to each other, but they eventually flew like they could read each other’s minds. Neither would ever admit it, but a few knuckledraggers swore they saw the pair coming out of the storeroom looking a bit disheveled. But during one mission, when Skulls’ mind went too dark and he couldn’t focus on the actual task at hand, the pair crashed. Badly injured, the two barely made it back to Galactica, and Crius died soon after. Skulls deeply mourned his loss, and took a few days off to recover. It was during this time that he realized they didn’t die together, and they didn’t exchange those last words. 

Regardless, Skulls realized that he needed to change his outlook, else he get himself, or worse, his pilot, killed. He was back to bouncing around pilots, and slowly working at becoming more positive during missions. He focused on the good in his missions, turned the near-death experiences into fun stories. 

*****

Margaret had transferred over from the Valkyrie to the Galactica with Commander Adama, but had left her old ECO, Spot behind. So, when she met Skulls for the first time, she didn’t exactly want to work with him. She and Spot had the motions down pat. They might not have been the best of friends, but what they had worked. They didn’t talk much when flying, which made it peaceful. This guy’s constant chattering was going to drive her crazy.

A few years later, though, she loved it. The two were always going off on crazy adventures; even when they’d frakked up, they came out better than all the rest of the Raptors. Which meant they had a bunch of stories to tell in the rec room. And it meant Skulls had a bunch of stories to tell in the cockpit. No matter how much she loved hearing him complain about their last adventure, it still gave her a mini-heart attack every time he started off with “You know, this reminds me of that time…”

She was happy that the universe had blessed her with a platonic soulmate. She was into Helo, sure, but obviously he was soulmates with Athena. And she had never really been into the whole romance thing, just a couple one-night stands here and there. But she wasn’t sure how Skulls would feel, and so she put off telling him. It wasn’t taboo to think you knew, or anything, she was just…nervous. It might affect their performance in the cockpit, which is not something they could be having. But she figured she’d tell him eventually, maybe when they found Earth and didn’t have to worry about their synergy any longer. But that was for another day, if they ever actually found Earth at all.

*****

When Admiral Adama had offered the opportunity to regain their freedom by helping find Hera, Skulls and Racetrack immediately offered to join. Narcho and some of the others didn’t understand, but the two never really had a problem with Adama. They just weren’t being recognized for their work. If the Admiral saw that they did their jobs (and more than that, mind you) on this mission, then they would forgive him his sins.

And, besides, it seemed like one hell of a fun mission.

*****

Why was it always them that seemed to save the day? Skulls and Racetrack, Racetrack and Skulls, saving the fleet one mission at a time. Skulls shook his head, driving the thoughts away. He needed to concentrate on the job at hand.

“Let’s go weapons hot, Skulls. We’re getting close.” Racetrack sounded anxious as she gave the order. Her gaze was straight ahead, focused on avoiding the asteroids at all costs.

“You sure about that?”

“No, but I don’t wanna come out of this crap with cold weapons, either.”

As he armed the nukes, he gave a small, sad look over at Margaret. “Nukes are hot.” This is the last time they would ever speak. All their adventures, and they finally found the one they would never come back from. He unconsciously held his mark cover as he thought about what he should say. Something Racetrack would like to have on her, something she could laugh at, something that would let her know it’s him.

“You know, this reminds me of that time back during Battery Three–”


	4. Chief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally, I don't feel that either Cally or Boomer are Galen's soulmate, but that's just me.

Earth. They made it. Not like it mattered anymore. For three times since the attack on the Colonies, he had loved and lost. Boomer, Cally, Boomer. Maybe it was best he was alone now. Can’t lose anyone if there’s nobody to lose, but you can’t love anybody either. He sighed and stood up. _Time to get moving_ , he thought.

After a few hours of walking, Galen stopped and took a break. He had been hiking along a stream; after all these years, it was weird to see running water again, especially when it was so clear. He crouched down and splashed some water on his face, and noticed the words peeking out from behind his sleeve.

“’Have a great trip, man. See you soon.’ I haven’t been on a trip in years,” Galen sighed and lay down. _Boomer didn’t say that to me when Cally shot her. She said she loved me._ The thought of his ex-wife shooting his ex-lover was too emotionally complicated, and so he moved on, and tried not to give it a second thought. _What was the last thing Cally ever said to me? When was the last time I saw Cally before…before Tory killed her? Right, she knocked me out._ He sighed. _I can’t remember what she said, but whatever she said, it definitely wasn’t ‘_ See you soon’. And then that left Boomer again. _Does it count if it’s a different Boomer? Doesn’t matter, she definitely didn’t say this either. So who did?_

The question plagued him for days, weeks. He kept thinking about it, partially because there was nothing else to think about. _Was it Tory in the past? No, because we didn’t die, we just travelled._ And when he died not too long after they landed – broke his arm a week after landing and was useless at hunting food – he never realized who his soulmate was. Not that it mattered anyways; he died alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a soulmate AU before (or written much of anything before) so thank you for reading! Please feel free to give any critiques or just let me know what you thought!


End file.
